Friday, October 5, 2012

On Honor: L5R Homebrew Planning (Three)

PREFACE
I've been working on the mechanics for our next campaign, an adaptation of L5R
to the homebrew we've been playing for a number of years. That's Action Cards, our
rules-light system using aspects like FATE. In it each player has an individual
and unique deck of cards representing their character. Normally I might have
stuck with the base L5R system, but the group has become accustomed to AC and
requested that we use it. More about the group's choice for campaign can be found here.

ON HONOR
I want to consider the role of honor in a samurai game. Honor’s an abstract
concept, one of many within the setting. If you want to emulate a samurai and
pseudo-samurai setting you have to take these into consideration. Well, for the
most part; I assume a purely Ronin game might not use these concepts as much.
But things like status, glory, reputation, and honor usually appear in these
kinds of games, so I want to look at them. I’m leaving out some abstractions, like
ki, chi, insight. Those usually reflect levels and more mechanical aspects of
the game, like combat. Some games conflate different terms, so let me start by
setting up those:

Status/Rank: Status is conferred on a character. It represents
social rank and position. In a samurai game, most PCs will be of a standard
bushi class. Some games have different ranks depending on the relative strength
and pull of the family. You could simulate this with different advantages or
disadvantages during character creation. But let’s assume that the PCs have a
standard samurai class status. There are a couple of axes you can measure
status from there. One the one hand, there’s the hierarchy of status. People
above and below the character’s rank. Above’s probably the most important, so
characters with an Office or Position, belonging to the Inner Circle, etc. will
be of that higher status. Players will probably aspire to raise their status by
obtaining a position, or less obviously, marrying into a better family. On the other
hand, there’s positional status based on type- for example in most samurai
games with read the status of a shugenja, monk, or courtier as slightly
different. They have a parallel rank to the classic bushi samurai, but they
possess distinct obligations and behaviors.

How Does This Come Into Play? So most often, status is used for
patronage and obstacles. A higher status person sends orders down to the PC or
the players try to curry the favor of someone in a particular position. It is
also used to demonstrate the difficulty of acting against someone- saying an
enemy has a higher status indicates a greater challenge. They have greater
access to resources, can call in favors, or the punishment for crossing them
will be severe. This is most often a meta-conceit, built into the narrative
rather than mechanical.

Some games include a ranked list of status levels (GURPS, Bushido,
for example). Status, in play, is generally fixed, rather than being
incremental (i.e. slowly accruing status over time). I imagine an increase in
status coming as a reward for service, rather than something players can buy.
The real question is how status modifies things like social combat. If two
characters have differing levels of status, but exist in the same strata, then
the character with the higher rank has an advantage. If we went to tested
social combat, I’d give them a circumstance benefit, bonus stress, resistance,
higher damage or the like. Perhaps if we wanted to formalize it, the higher
status person could pick their bennies in the situation. Say they had a
two-step advantage; they could pick more social damage and social “armor.” On
the one hand, that’s especially cool in a setting which has courtiers. On the
other, it adds some more complexity. However, there come times when social rank
doesn’t matter- for example when dealing with people outside of one’s strata-
peasants may not be subject to the same social forces as samurai. So should
those relations be ignored? I’m not sure, that’s complicated and subjective
which makes me leery of codifying those mechanics.

Reputation: In some systems, reputation is read as repute- in
which case it works as Glory (below). In some systems players can obtain a
specific reputation, used as a modifier for reaction rolls in certain situations.
“Master of the Invisible Strike,” “Hero of the Battle of Fallen Timbers,” or
“Backstabbing Drunken Oaf.” Obviously, if needed, these can be handled as
aspects in a FATE game.

How Does This Come Into Play? In most games I’ve seen players purchase
these kinds of things at the start. They then have to remember to bring them
in. In a FATE game, reputation aspects fit into the standard play mode. So a
player can invoke the reputation for a positive effect or the GM for a trouble
effect. Of course that assumes a kind of fixed and hard-wired approach. In
GURPS for example, you pay points for a reputation. In FATE, a reputation
aspect takes up one of your slots. A way to make this more flexible is to
borrow Legends of Anglerre’s concept of plot stress. Essentially, these
represent aspects a player can use for a little while. In LoA, an aspect with
plot stress can be used a certain number of times before it generates a
problem- a story event or something which needs to be done. For example, if
someone has “Sheriff of Highgate” as an aspect- after a certain number of uses,
problems would arise at Highgate which need to be solved. Here a reputation
could be gained, for good or ill. If traded on, then the player marks a box on
it. Once the boxes associated with it have been used up then the rep has lost
its power. The player has to do something to reestablish it or do something to
create a new rep to replace it.

Glory/Fame: Some games use the concept of accumulated fame- often
from battles. This provides a Glory rank, showing how famous a character is
compared to another. Fame can be gained for battles, artisanal creations, and
legendary actions. Some schools, like the Ikoma Bards, particularly work with
manipulating fame and glory. Glory’s an external trait- which has to have
witnesses and be spread around. The weird thing about glory is that it gets
read as a “stat” in many samurai games. But effectively it is a kind of status
rank, gained in play.

How Does This Come Into Play? To focus on the way I want to use this,
acts which would generate glory and fame can create a reputation as I mentioned
above. These would be temporary aspects with plot stress- as they’re used, they
get worn out. Eventually you can no longer invoke your fame (or notoriety) for
effect.

Honor: This is the key abstraction for a samurai campaign. Honor
generally represents an internal attitude- a reflection of sense of self. Some
games read it a little more like Glory, but generally it is about a character’s
adherence to a code- and it can rise or fall regardless of witnesses. So how do
different games present honor:

Resistance: Honor can be used as a test to resist temptations or
compels. In some cases this is a testable trait. In others, it might require
the spend of an honor resource to avoid the effect.

Level: Honor is a measure of the worth or experience of a character. In
the case of worth, it offers a way of judging NPCs and the like. In some games,
like Bushido, certain honor minimums are necessary for leveling. So in that
game system, all high level characters have high honor totals.

Reactions: Honor can be used as a modifier for interactions. High honor
people can gain a benefit, and low honor people, a penalty.

Visibility: In some systems, samurai can make a test to judge the
relative or absolute honor of a target. These kinds of games often present an
option for sneaky people to conceal or falsify their honor. So we might have
actual vs. apparent honor.

Bonus: Situational bonuses- often tied to special abilities. For
example, a duelist might be able to substitute their honor rating or value for
another trait.

Measurable: Honor systems usually have a score- sometimes ranks, and
sometimes point accumulations. These can change over time.

Relativity: Different roles assign differing values to virtues and
therefore gain or lose honor differently. In L5R those are based on Clan
values. But it can also be modified by the role of a character. It also can be
based on the level of a character’s honor. It is easier for a high honor person
to fall- they find themselves tested constantly. It is also harder for them to
advance. On the other hand, it is more difficult for a low honor person to
fall, since they’re already towards the bottom. If a group of varying honor
levels gains honor for an action, high honor people may not gain as much as
others.

Outside of Combat: Actions adhering to the bushido virtues without
resorting to the sword can gain honor. Diplomatic actions, artistic creations,
or demonstrations of skill can impact this.

Reward: Honor systems often reward good behavior of some kinds. L5R
offers a mechanic where the differing values of the clans affect the level of
those rewards. Reward systems often require not just good behavior, but that
behavior in the face of a challenge. Sacrifice and difficulty impact the
reward. Some have it as a role-playing award. Honor rewards may be used to keep
play in line- by affirming things which fit.

Punishment: The flip side is that honor can also be used to punish bad
behavior. This can also be intended to keep play in line. Play which violates
the bushido code merits a drop. This particular aspect is tough to handle. It
requires adjudicating a player’s personal decisions and morality. Nearly all of
the rules I’ve seen talk about being careful when assigning losses. That’s
striking- and suggests that there may be a fundamental flaw to that. You could
take that in a couple of ways- one might be that the idea of penalties itself
doesn’t work at the table. Another might be that gamers are babies and should
learn to suck it up. Yet another might be that games need a set of mechanics to
replace the subjectivity of these kinds of decisions. I’m not sure where I fall
on this- but the difficulties and glossed over problem of legislated morality
in rpgs is something for another day.

How Does This Come Into Play? Very differently, depending on the system.
My goal is to come up with an Honor system that works within our
FATE-influenced homebrew system. I have an idea I’m working through that I’m
not entirely sure about yet. Here’s the basic form.

Each player chooses three of the seven bushido virtues to be key to their
identity- one primary and two secondary. The primary virtue of their family must
be one of those three. (Optional (?): each player can set one virtue as least
important).

Players begin each session with a standard Fate Pool of five points. Some of
those Fate points are actually Honor Points, based on the character’s starting
honor rank. PC’s will start at an Honor of two, unless they choose an
advantage/disadvantage.

In this system, these points can always be spent for one of four effects. The
first three of these require the character invoke an aspect:

Gain a bonus

Take a redraw

Change something about a scene

Activate a power or advantage.

Honor points can work like that, but also have some additional potential
benefits:

Utilize a bushido virtue special ability. Each virtue would have a once per
scene (session?) ability a player could spend an Honor Point to invoke. Players
would only have access to the three virtues they chose during character
creation.

Resist a compel: if the GM or another player compels the player based on an
aspect, they can resist by spending a point of honor.

Mental Stress: perhaps players could reduce mental damage or remove a mental
consequence by spending a point of Honor (i.e. versus fear or torture).*Relative levels of current honor could serve as a bonus in social situations?

Other benefits? I don’t want to go too crazy with this.

We would mark the two kinds of points in a player’s pool with distinct markers-
black (fate) and white (honor).

During play, when a player does something worthy of increasing their honor,
they can convert a standard fate point to an honor point. To do so, they have
to have a fate point available in their pool. The GM then trades out that black
marker for a white one. On the other hand, if the player commits an action
worthy of dishonor, the GM will remove an honor point from the player’s pool.

Players can increase their honor level if at the end of a session, they have
double their starting number of honor points available. So to go from an Honor
2 samurai to an Honor 3 samurai, you have to end a session with four Honor
points in your pool. To go from 3 to 4 requires having six in your pool- which
means that you have to carefully gain some points, take actions to convert
them, and not spend any. It does mean that it is easier to climb from lower
levels to higher, which makes sense as it is a PC-aimed system.

On the other hand, if a player takes a dishonorable action or fails a test of
honor (through a compel for example) and has no honor points in their pool,
they will drop down one honor level. This makes sense game-wise, but I’m not
sure if it balances the upper and lower- it makes it easier for lower honor
characters to drop. Perhaps something about a deficit- if you’re Honor Five,
run out of honor points and take a hit, then you drop. But if you’re honor 3,
let’s say, you can take up to three hits before falling.